Justice: Getting rid of Huggins smart move

RICHARD JUSTICE, Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, August 25, 2005

They circled the wagons for their man Huggy Bear on Wednesday. If you had any doubt that the University of Cincinnati had done the right thing in forcing Bob Huggins out, all you had to do was listen to the arguments for keeping him.

His friends made far better cases than his enemies ever could.

They said it was about recruiting and about competing in the Big East. They said Cincinnati wouldn't win as many basketball games with someone other than Bob Huggins on the bench.

They simply don't get it. They don't understand that at one school they've decided it's not going to be about hoops or ticket sales or any of that stuff. At one school, it's going to be about doing the right thing.

Most of the people who make their living off college basketball, the ones who think all the coaches are terrific guys and that the biggest issues are defending the low post, will never get it.

Dickie V. was rip-roaring mad. He told ESPN that Huggy simply was too kind for his own good.

More than horsing around

Vitale said Huggins gave chances to kids who wouldn't normally get chances. Those kids took advantage of Huggins.

One might say Huggins gave those kids chances because they blocked shots and helped the Bearcats make 14 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances, but you know how some people try to tear down every good deed.

Some of those kids ended up in jail. One of them, an excitable fellow, punched a police horse.

Did you say a player punched a police horse?

Was that the remake of Blazing Saddles?

At least that kid probably wouldn't be intimidated by Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Others showed less imagination. One assaulted two cops. Another did time for sexual battery.

Time to change image

And there was
Donald Little
. He really took advantage of Huggins. And his roommate didn't get a good deal, either.

Little taped that roommate to a lawn chair one day and threw weights at his head. Then he clubbed him with a whiskey bottle, poked him with a hot coat hanger and stabbed him.

Even Huggins couldn't tolerate Donald Little. He threw him off the team. The problem was that too many Huggins recruits kept ending up doing bad things.

When Cincinnati got a new school president, Nancy Zimpher, two years ago, she wasn't amused that her school was famous for punching horses.

She soon discovered Huggins wasn't much interested in academics, either. One of the highlights of the NCAA Tournament was watching some reporter work up the nerve to ask Huggins about a graduation rate that at one time was around zero percent.

Huggins would answer with a stare that would send chills down your spine. He was never much for words on his good days.

It's not that he was incapable of communicating. He could curse out a ref with the best of them. But on those days when the subject of academics came up, his voice would become low and gravelly.

Turns out he did graduate a few players. According to his defenders, 11 of his last 17 players got their degrees. Yet last spring, Huggins also had one with a 0.00 grade-point average.

Huggins probably couldn't have survived the academic issues even if he'd lived a clean personal life. He didn't.

His career at Cincinnati essentially ended last year when video of his field-sobriety test surfaced. At a time when Zimpher was announcing a plan to raise standards across the board and to make UC known for something more than Bob Huggins and his thugs, there was Huggins staggering around on video after being arrested for suspicion of driving under the influence.

For years, the University of Cincinnati had looked the other way with regard to Bob Huggins.

Why? Because he won. Because he got the Bearcats on television. Because he did what he was paid to do.

Even Jay Bilas, a thoughtful ESPN college basketball analyst, defended Huggins. He said the program's problems were blown out of proportion.

Anyway, by last spring, Zimpher had had enough. She didn't get Huggins an extension and privately made the decision to send him packing after two more seasons. She thought that after 16 seasons, he should be allowed to leave somewhat gracefully.

Huggins wouldn't accept that. He'd gotten his way for so long that he surely figured he'd get it again.

He must have been flabbergasted that a school president would tell him what to do. So he forced his firing by demanding an extension. He said recruiting was being hurt.

And that's the kind of thing his defenders have focused on. They're saying the timing was bad. They're saying this will be a bad season.

As if one bad season is more important than one school getting its priorities in order. As if one bad season is more important than a school telling a bully of a coach, a man who represents everything that's wrong with college sports, to hit the road.

After being known for all the wrong things for so long, the University of Cincinnati now can be known as a place that wants to get it right. College sports has a lot of bad days, a lot of embarrassing days.